POTUS/General Election Thread 2020 + Aftermath

[Montmorency]

I'd already heard two months ago that the RNC would formally adopt no (new) platform, other than the greatness of Trump I guess.

Cool new idiom I learned: "The game is not worth the candle."

[Hooahguy]

Still trying to figure out if it was done out of laziness, an actual sworn fealty to Trump, or perhaps just waiting to see where the wind blows to leave open the potential of starting from scratch in 2024. I'm guessing a mix of all three.

[ReluctantSamurai]

An interesting take on the real GOP platform:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...ianism/615640/

The challenge for Republicans in the week ahead is to hope that President Trump can remember, night after night, to speak only the things he’s supposed to speak—not to blurt the things his party wants its supporters to absorb unspoken.

[Hooahguy]

Well the RNC is going roughly as well as expected.

A speaker for the Republican National Convention retweeted an anti-Semitic screed on Tuesday morning, the same day she was slated to take the stage to praise President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration policies.

A person familiar with the matter confirmed to POLITICO on Tuesday evening that the speaker, Mary Ann Mendoza, was no longer appearing at the RNC.

[Hooahguy]

An article which goes into some of what Monty mentioned earlier, and how mass voting by mail is a trap.

For a moment, imagine a swing state where 42 percent of ballots are cast by mail and Biden carries them 80 percent to 20 percent, while Trump carries all other ballots 70 percent to 30 percent. If every ballot were to count, Biden would win the state 51 percent to 49 percent. But if 8 percent of absentees were ruled invalid for various reasons - and the invalidated votes were reflective of the overall absentee pool — Trump would prevail by two hundredths of 1 percent.

This scenario explains why both sides are pouring tens of millions of dollars into litigating states' mail-in ballot rules and procedures this year.

Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias, who represented Franken in the 2008 Minnesota recount, is quarterbacking Democrats' efforts to prevent mail-in votes from being rejected. Elias is actively engaged in lawsuits in 18 states on everything from witness requirements and signature matching protocol to drop-off boxes and postmark/return deadlines — all of which differ by state.


"The rejection rates we've seen in the primaries have almost uniformly been above historic ranges," Elias said, pointing to Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as particular litigation hot spots. "I take Republicans at face value, that they don't want people to vote by mail."

If the Biden camp keeps publicly pushing for voting by mail by those who do not absolutely need it, then I think theres a good chance Trump gets a second term, Id say in the 75% range. Especially since the latest round of riots have given Trump more ammunition and may push the needle towards him in a really key state.

In Kenosha County, where the president won by fewer than 250 votes in 2016, those who already supported Mr. Trump said in interviews that the events of the past few days have simply reinforced their conviction that he is the man for the job. But some voters who were less sure of their choice said the chaos in their city and the inability of elected leaders to stop it were currently nudging them toward the Republicans.

[Montmorency]

An interesting take on the real GOP platform:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...ianism/615640/

Well the RNC is going roughly as well as expected.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...vention-400039

“Owning the libs and pissing off the media,” shrugs Brendan Buck, a longtime senior congressional aide and imperturbable party veteran if ever there was one. “That’s what we believe in now. There’s really not much more to it.”

How many times do we need them to tell us who they are? This isn't new information.

With Election Day just a few months away, I was genuinely surprised, in the course of recent conversations with a great many Republicans, at their inability to articulate a purpose, a designation, a raison d'être for their party.

War against Humanity.

An article which goes into some of what Monty mentioned earlier, and how mass voting by mail is a trap.


If the Biden camp keeps publicly pushing for voting by mail by those who do not absolutely need it, then I think theres a good chance Trump gets a second term, Id say in the 75% range. Especially since the latest round of riots have given Trump more ammunition and may push the needle towards him in a really key state.

If the cited recent study finding four percent total attrition of mail ballots in the 2016 election is correct, that's significantly higher than the 1% (for 2016) commonly referenced. Volume, first-time mail voters, and any postal service delays could easily be expected to push that up considerably. Interactions with individual state baselines are unpredictable.

Conservatively assuming a partisan imbalance of only 33% of Republicans voting by mail against 50% of Democrats, and granting an elevated and uniform attrition rate for in-person ballots (say 1%), then even a 5% uniform attrition rate for mail ballots knocks about 0.6% off the Democrat's vote share in a given two-way race. A more extreme partisan imbalance in mail modality of 25(R)-75(D), with a staggering 10% attrition rate, would ceteris paribus reduce the Democrat's vote share by 4.5%. In terms of the winning margin in a two-way contest, then in the former case a 50-50 race would go 50.15:49.84, and in the latter case a 50-50 race would go 51.2-48.9.

Taking those sets of parameters on partisan split in voting modality and attrition rate of the modalities as upper and lower bounds, we would expect Democrats to see a penalty of between 0.3 and 2.4 points relative to Republicans in a typical race (not taking other variables into account, such as voter suppression). Anyone can naturally recognize that a worst-case penalty of more than 2 points from the final margin* for Democrats could be fatal in a close race. In 2018, for example, 21 of 435 House races had a margin of victory within 2.3%, 14 of which changed parties, 13 of which were Democratic flips. The Democratic capture of the Arizona Senate seat in 2018 was by a 2.34% margin. The Republican victories in Florida's Senate and gubernatorial races were within a 0.5% margin. And of course, there were 6 states within 1.5% margins in 2016, though 4 were won by Trump.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Base scenario Republican and Democrat 1000 votes each, or 50:50 ratio.

If mail 33-50, 5% mail attrition, 1% in-person attrition:

R: 1000*1/3*1/20 = 16.66 mail down; 1000 *2/3*1/100 = 6.66 in-person down >>> ~24/1000 = 2.4% votes down
D: 1000*1/2*1/20 = 25 mail down; 1000*1/2*1/100 = 5 in-person down >>> 30/1000 = 3% votes down
Net Attrition: -0.6% Dem
Margin Change: 50.15:49.84 = -0.31 Dem

If mail 25-75, 5% mail attrition, 1% in-person attrition:

R: 1000*1/4*1/20 = 12.5 mail down; 1000*3/4*1/100 = 7.5 in-person down >>> 20/1000 = 2% votes down
D: 1000*3/4*1/20 = 37.5 mail down; 1000*1/4*1/100 = 2.5 in-person down >>> 40/1000 = 4% votes down
Net Attrition: -2% Dem
Margin Change: 50.52:49.48 = -1.03 Dem

If mail 33-50, 10% mail attrition, 1% in-person attrition:

R: 1000*1/4*1/10 = 25 mail down; 1000*3/4*1/100 = 7.5 in-person down >>> 32.5/1000 = 3.25% votes down
D: 1000*3/4*1/10 = 75 mail down; 1000*1/4*1/100 = 2.5 in-person down >>> 77.5/1000 = 7.75% votes down
Net Attrition: -4.5% Dem
Margin Change: 51.16:48.78 = -2.38 Dem

*Because of math reasons I don't quite understand anymore, a reduction of x% of the value of one side of a ratio changes the margin between sides by roughly, but not exactly, x/2%

One practical consequence is that you can kiss Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio goodbye as EC contenders this cycle. Arizona and Florida might still be in play (both due to size of margins and better historical experience with mail voting), but shoring up the heavy Biden leads in the basic frontline states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania (all currently under Democratic leadership) should be the priority.

It's not the end of the world if even 10 gettable/Dem-lean House seats flip to Republicans on net, but we could easily whiff on a couple of Senate seats, which would dramatically stymie Biden's entrance.


I'm still astonished these fellows haven't been criminally charged in 3 years of wacky crime.

[rory_20_uk]

Many, many years ago, when life was simple, the only messages people received were from a few major broadcasters, the USA was a beacon that people in other countries looked up to and in many cases were inspired at what humanity could achieve.

Now, the message is somewhat more nuanced. It is a warning as to what can happen in democracies in a short time (1930's Germany is too long ago). It is a reminder that reality and what was shown on the News rarely are the same - the USA was, is and and shows no sign of changing from being a very racist, semi-apartheid state; the American Dream and Values were at best a form of Cold War propaganda. Finally it is a signal lesson that almost unfettered neoliberalism will concentrate all money in the hands of those who can buy off the handlers.

When Biden is the best hope for a brighter tomorrow, we truly realise how dark it has become.

[Pannonian]

Many, many years ago, when life was simple, the only messages people received were from a few major broadcasters, the USA was a beacon that people in other countries looked up to and in many cases were inspired at what humanity could achieve.

Now, the message is somewhat more nuanced. It is a warning as to what can happen in democracies in a short time (1930's Germany is too long ago). It is a reminder that reality and what was shown on the News rarely are the same - the USA was, is and and shows no sign of changing from being a very racist, semi-apartheid state; the American Dream and Values were at best a form of Cold War propaganda. Finally it is a signal lesson that almost unfettered neoliberalism will concentrate all money in the hands of those who can buy off the handlers.

When Biden is the best hope for a brighter tomorrow, we truly realise how dark it has become.

See what's happening over here with Cummings and his puppets.

[CrossLOPER]

When Biden is the best hope for a brighter tomorrow, we truly realise how dark it has become.

It's supposed to be a stepping stone, not the final answer. The overall problem is the general laziness/apathy of the populace. I know a lot of people, particularly those under the age of 30, that do not vote because "it doesn't matter" or they are "too busy". You need to have a follow up. If you buy tools but don't do anything with them, the job is never going to be finished or started. It takes constant work.

It was annoying to hear, during the first year of the Trump presidency, to hear journalists complaining about how "demeaning" and difficult it was to deal with the predictable problems associated with Trump being in office.

No one wants to do their job.

[Montmorency]

Sounds like one of the more useful books by Republican wiseguys, but I can't recommend it as I don't know anything else about its contents. Hopefully it properly educates the public about what the Republican Party is and has been.
It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump by Stuart Stevens

Stuart Stevens spent decades electing Republicans at every level, from presidents to senators to local officials. He knows the GOP as intimately as anyone in America, and in this new book he offers a devastating portrait of a party that has lost its moral and political compass.

This is not a book about how Donald J. Trump hijacked the Republican Party and changed it into something else. Stevens shows how Trump is in fact the natural outcome of five decades of hypocrisy and self-delusion, dating all the way back to the civil rights legislation of the early 1960s. Stevens shows how racism has always lurked in the modern GOP's DNA, from Goldwater's opposition to desegregation to Ronald Reagan's welfare queens and states' rights rhetoric. He gives an insider's account of the rank hypocrisy of the party's claims to embody "family values," and shows how the party's vaunted commitment to fiscal responsibility has been a charade since the 1980s. When a party stands for nothing, he argues, it is only natural that it will be taken over by the loudest and angriest voices in the room.

It Was All a Lie is not just an indictment of the Republican Party, but a candid and often lacerating mea culpa. Stevens is not asking for pity or forgiveness; he is simply telling us what he has seen firsthand. He helped to create the modern party that kneels before a morally bankrupt con man and now he wants nothing more than to see what it has become burned to the ground.

Many, many years ago, when life was simple, the only messages people received were from a few major broadcasters, the USA was a beacon that people in other countries looked up to and in many cases were inspired at what humanity could achieve.

Now, the message is somewhat more nuanced. It is a warning as to what can happen in democracies in a short time (1930's Germany is too long ago). It is a reminder that reality and what was shown on the News rarely are the same - the USA was, is and and shows no sign of changing from being a very racist, semi-apartheid state; the American Dream and Values were at best a form of Cold War propaganda. Finally it is a signal lesson that almost unfettered neoliberalism will concentrate all money in the hands of those who can buy off the handlers.

When Biden is the best hope for a brighter tomorrow, we truly realise how dark it has become.

Many years ago, when life was superficially simple, the US was an actual apartheid state. It is today more and more successfully multiethnic than any European country. With the troublesome face of white supremacy set against us, but American whites are more racially liberal than whites almost anywhere else in the world, including the UK. I would say the same about American POC. Biden is not our great hope - the sacred, enduring fury of the American people is our hope. Only the People, in sufficient numbers and with appropriate zeal and commitment over years, can take the first step by making Trump a Carter and Biden a Reagan (in the structurally-disjunctive sense). It would be useful for the British and Europeans to model good government for us, so that it might eventually roll over the map like a tidal wave, but I understand; if not us first, then who?

For God's sake, don't forget that we're all in this together, in a more-than-trivial way. Don't act like our fates are so dissociable.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Ehhh, you folks might want to redo this a bit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/u...-platform.html“The Middle East is more dangerous now than at any time since the Second World War,” the platform reads. “Whatever their disagreements, presidents of both parties had always prioritized America’s national interests, the trust of friendly governments, and the security of Israel. That sound consensus was replaced with impotent grandstanding on the part of the current President and his Secretaries of State. The results have been ruinous for all parties except Islamic terrorists and their Iranian and other sponsors.”

I kept thinking about this and wondering when, since Johnson, it would NOT have been applicable...

[Pannonian]

I kept thinking about this and wondering when, since Johnson, it would NOT have been applicable...

The last few months have been the quietest that I can remember in my lifetime.

[ReluctantSamurai]

What we are now seeing, is the expression of the one thing Trump excels at---subterfuge. He knows his SARS-2 response is more than abysmal, and he knows it's difficult to campaign on the economy when the economy has disappeared down the shit-hole. The one single thing he and his campaign can do, and do quickly, is to fulminate anger and unrest so that enough Americans will forget about the first two and hand him the White House for a second term.

What's frustrating is how media has bought into this, and therefore heavily influencing the general public. When was the last time you viewed mainstream media content of any kind where the pandemic or the economy held the lead story and had articles and opinions in support. Now it's unrest in Portland, Chicago, New York, and the latest media love interest, Kenosha Wisconsin. If Trump is one thing, it's an opportunist. When presented with these "opportunities" to advance his "Law & Order" platform (and by advance I mean do everything possible to make the situation worse), he's made hay, so-to-speak. He's using Terry Goodkind's "Wizard's First Rule" to perfection.

Democrats have run a sensible campaign, up to this point, but are now simply reacting to what the President says or does. Voicing outrage Trump's latest flaunting of law (for which he knows nothing will be done about it) is not going to cut it. If the Dems don't start acting pro-actively, they will see their large leads in the polls vanish as the election approaches.

[Hooahguy]

Completely agree. Biden's speech today I think was a step towards the right direction. Jennifer Rubin had a good article yesterday about just this:

Trump amplifies White fears. Brookings explains: “His efforts to claim that the legitimate protesters are all Antifa, blame ‘liberal Governors and Mayors’ for the unrest, and declare that ‘when the looting starts, the shooting starts’ all exacerbate tensions. Such statements are likely to provoke strong and divergent reactions from across the political spectrum rather than bring Americans together in outrage over George Floyd’s murder and the need to reject violence in favor of genuine reform.”

Republican elected officials feel comfortable reverting to the Southern Strategy, portraying themselves as the only thing standing between White people and violent Black people. It is a tune they have been singing since 1968.

Naturally then, the news media is holding Trump accountable for violence, insisting that he condemn police excesses and … no, that is not happening. Instead, they amplify Trump’s demand that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden do something about the violence. Biden’s weak-kneed supporters (playing into Trump’s hands) blame Biden for not denouncing violence — which Biden has repeatedly done. That in turn generates a spate of “Democrats worried violence hurts Biden” articles. The media focus on the same few incidents of violence drowns out reports (mostly in print, rarely on TV news) explaining White instigators’ role in these events. (When the role of White provocateurs does make the news, there is rarely video to accompany the brief reference to White agitators.) And you wonder how Trump gets away with rabid race-baiting?

A few Democrats have figured out what is going on. Appearing on CNN, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) observed, “They believe the violence is helpful to them. And the president is only motivated by one thing: ‘What is in it for him?’ He sees this violence — and his ability to agitate more of it — as useful to his campaign.” He added, “What it does to the country, the loss of life, he doesn’t care.”

I think that things will calm over the next few weeks like it has before and the news can focus on COVID again, but the real question will be what will happen if there is another killing and it all kicks off again right before the election.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I think that things will calm over the next few weeks like it has before and the news can focus on COVID again

That, I'm afraid, the Trump Administration will not allow to happen. The call to 'defend our cities' will only increase in the coming weeks, and Kenosha will be repeated again and again.

Rather ironic that Fearless Leader attacks Biden for wanting to 'defund police' when it's actually the other way around:

https://www.vox.com/2020/6/16/212866...ing-the-police

President Trump has repeatedly proposed cuts in federal funding for police, criticized landmark legislation that boosted financial support for police departments, and is currently involved in blocking legislation that would greatly reduce pressure on local governments to cut police funding.

This dispute about budgeting — where Democrats are fighting against austerity and Republicans are fighting for it — is different from the theoretical argument police abolitionists want to have about the future of law enforcement. But it’s a real one playing out this summer in Congress with real consequences for the lives of hundreds of millions of people. And in this debate, it’s Trump who wants to defund the police.

In early February of this year, the Trump administration proposed a 58 percent cut in the federal government’s COPS Hiring Program, a federal program that supports police department staffing. That’s not a one-off; his administration’s budget proposals have routinely called for huge cuts to this program, which was inaugurated in the 1990s as part of Bill Clinton’s pledge to hire 100,000 new police officers (Congress keeps declining to do this).

Why the Dems don't focus in on this, and tie the actual defunding of local and state governments (and therefore police departments) to the economic downturn as a result of the abysmal pandemic response, is a mystery to me. What the eff are they waiting for?

[Montmorency]

The Republican soul. If only police had the restraint of customer-facing staff.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1299914167525216256 [VIDEO]

What we are now seeing, is the expression of the one thing Trump excels at---subterfuge. He knows his SARS-2 response is more than abysmal, and he knows it's difficult to campaign on the economy when the economy has disappeared down the shit-hole. The one single thing he and his campaign can do, and do quickly, is to fulminate anger and unrest so that enough Americans will forget about the first two and hand him the White House for a second term.

What's frustrating is how media has bought into this, and therefore heavily influencing the general public. When was the last time you viewed mainstream media content of any kind where the pandemic or the economy held the lead story and had articles and opinions in support. Now it's unrest in Portland, Chicago, New York, and the latest media love interest, Kenosha Wisconsin. If Trump is one thing, it's an opportunist. When presented with these "opportunities" to advance his "Law & Order" platform (and by advance I mean do everything possible to make the situation worse), he's made hay, so-to-speak. He's using Terry Goodkind's "Wizard's First Rule" to perfection.

Biden has kind of boxed himself out of running on 'the entire Republican party is a fascist conspiracy (and a pretty overt one) toward the overthrow of republican government. Get mad you son of a bitches, peace was never an option!'

One might suggest, boss-man don't need to say it, his allies and operatives do, while Biden waxes about decency, harmony, and the Light side of the force. The problem is that the bipartisan comity mentality is fractal down the layers of Democratic politics. They desperately believe in the need for love and unity among Americans - which we don't and can't have in the status quo. Also, they fear alienating moderates and the politically passive. Same logic as Obama
putting the lid on Russian active measures intel in fall 2016 (by the way, about that...)

It's taken all of - THIS *waves at last 4 years* - for at least some Democratic electeds to reach the point of: being uncustomarily disrespectful toward the President and his performance; voicing their fear that the character/future of the country is at stake; considering thinking about bypassing some of the procedural barriers of government.

The most aggressive Democrats have been against Trump was their narrow and somber impeachment inquiry.

Half a year ago Democrats eagerly helped Trump take up the biggest economic relief program in American history, sacrificing trillions in transfers to big business and billionares in exchange for hundreds of billions for desperate families and small businesses. The stimulus was successful enough that Republicans have stonewalled all further legislation even as accumulated savings run dry and evictions kick up as we close on the election. Does that sound like the Republicans care about how the mood of the electorate will manifest at the ballot box? Should the Dems then not have played hardball? I wouldn't necessarily go that far, but it's clearly a sign of a mindset trapped in "normal" politics.

I don't mean to rag on Democrats too much. The electorate, and not just at the margins, is clueless, disengaged and performatively cynical (disclosure: I was like that 4 years ago); the fears of alienating them, to say nothing of the mainstream media, are not entirely unreasonable. And besides overcoming deeply-held personal beliefs, the path dependence of messaging-as-ideology is a hell of a thing. The longer you spend doing the same thing, the more difficult it is to overcome that inertia. It would take true leadership to move the whole party culture on a dime and change strategies. Circling back, naturally, Biden is, and was chosen for being, the exact last person who could demonstrate this kind of pathbreaking leadership. But this is a unique world-historical moment, and the people in power have a responsibility to the gravity of the situation and to posterity.

If I had my druthers, every Democratic elected from Biden down would (have) spend/t each day hammering the stakes in this register:



Orgah Idaho's signature is a good start.

Democrats have run a sensible campaign, up to this point, but are now simply reacting to what the President says or does. Voicing outrage Trump's latest flaunting of law (for which he knows nothing will be done about it) is not going to cut it. If the Dems don't start acting pro-actively, they will see their large leads in the polls vanish as the election approaches.

Marginal fluctuations in public opinion are now less relevant as a threshold matter than the looming extinction of free and fair elections in this country.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/ele...oting-n1112436

[ReluctantSamurai]

The most aggressive Democrats have been against Trump was their narrow and somber impeachment inquiry.

And it's obvious that isn't going to cut it any longer. Fearless Leader has finally found a chink in the Dems armour, and is hammering away with full force. If there is any backbone to their leadership, they need to take the fight to the President. Bleating like a bunch scared sheep is no longer an option.

An interesting read from a week ago:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...-loses/615835/

Here is a prediction about the November election: If Donald Trump wins, in a trustworthy vote, what’s happening this week in Kenosha, Wisconsin, will be one reason. Maybe the reason. And yet Joe Biden has it in his power to spare the country a second Trump term.

Events are unfolding with the inevitable logic of a nightmare. A white police officer shoots a Black man as he’s leaning into a car with his three sons inside—shoots him point-blank in the back, seven times, “as if he didn’t matter,” the victim’s father later says. If George Floyd was crushed to death by depraved indifference, Jacob Blake is the object of an attempted execution. Somehow, he survives—but his body is shattered, paralyzed from the waist down, maybe for life. Kenosha explodes in rage, the same rage that’s been igniting around the country all summer long, fading in Minneapolis only to flare up in Portland. In Kenosha, as elsewhere, what starts in peaceful protest soon leads to violence: cars burned, shops smashed, local businesses destroyed. Police and rioters incite one another to escalate; armed vigilantes take matters into their own hands; and a teenager from out of state kills two local men with an AR-15-style rifle. The authorities are overwhelmed and ineffectual, offering little in the way of information or protection. Within a couple of days, much of the small city is a ruined landscape.

It’s no use dismissing their words as partisan talking points. They are effective ones, backed up by certain facts. Trump will bang this loud, ugly drum until Election Day. He knows that Kenosha has placed Democrats in a trap. They’ve embraced the protests and the causes that drive them. The third night of the Democratic convention was consumed with the language and imagery of protest—as if all Americans watching were activists.

Harris, a Black former prosecutor and now an advocate for police reform, seems uniquely positioned to speak to the crisis. But she has said little all week, which suggests that there might be things she doesn’t want to say. On Thursday, Harris directly addressed the events in Kenosha, affirming that Americans “must always defend peaceful protest and peaceful protesters. We should not confuse them with those looting and committing acts of violence.” She quickly moved on. Democratic leaders, from the nearly invisible mayor of Kenosha up to those on the presidential ticket, are reluctant to tarnish a just cause, amplify Republican attacks, or draw the wrath of their own progressive base (Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut deleted a tweet saying that both the Blake shooting and the riots were wrong after commenters accused him of equating the two). So Democrats continue to mute their response to the violence and hope it will subside, even though it has persisted straight through the summer.

Nothing will harm a campaign like the wishful thinking, fearful hesitation, or sheer complacency that fails to address what voters can plainly see. Kenosha gives Biden a chance to help himself and the country. Ordinarily it’s the incumbent president’s job to show up at the scene of a national tragedy and give a unifying speech. But Trump is temperamentally incapable of doing so and, in fact, has a political interest in America’s open wounds and burning cities.

Unfortunately, Fearless Leader has beaten them to the punch, and is visiting Kenosha today. Lost opportunity for Biden, Harris, and the Dems. They should have already been there and pre-empted The Bully from using Kenosha to further his agenda of sowing more chaos. This isn't the Karate Kid where the loud mouthed bully gets felled in the end by the Crane Kick.

A further knock on the Democratic response to the shifting public attention:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...-strife-405578

For months, the contrast of Biden's caution with Trump's Twitter tirades reinforced Democrats’ claims that the president never took the virus seriously enough — and never would. Biden's constant presence in his basement over the summer was mocked by Trump but seemed to help the candidate with voters who welcomed the Democrat's restraint.

“He’s trying to model what national leadership should look like. It’s not about yourself, it’s about protecting others,” said Michigan state Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, a Democrat from Flint. “It’s been the reality TV star versus someone acting responsibly.”

As polls have shown modest tightening in the race, Biden surrogates and Democratic strategists said in interviews that they’ve been urging the campaign to be more explicit in linking Trump’s early failures on coronavirus with the sluggish economy and high jobless rates.

“Trump and the RNC are preying on legitimate fears to lie about defunding police, destroying suburbs, and more, labeling the vice president as `Joe the destroyer,’” one questioner said to Harris. “What's our strategy to cut through all of this and communicate a simple, clear understandable message that will resonate with undecided voters?”

Your strategy needs to be to get your ass out on the campaign trail and show people what was voiced at the DNC wasn't just political rhetoric, as put by a Republican pollster in Arizona:

Biden needs to "show that he cares about Arizona, and that he’s attentive to Arizona,” said Paul Bentz, a Republican pollster in the state. “If Biden wants to win Arizona, he has to come here.”

The same reason why he should have already been in Kenosha

Marginal fluctuations in public opinion are now less relevant as a threshold matter than the looming extinction of free and fair elections in this country.

Marginal in the national sense, perhaps, but it's obvious that the election will come down to the Rust Belt states again, and if Fearless Leader carries those, the 'extinction of free and fair elections' won't matter much.

[Montmorency]

Is this like the fifth piece I've posted on the Org that makes the implicit case for disestablishing DHS? (Though no doubt having Trump in office has emboldened the supremacists in the service beyond baseline.) It's about the horrific racism a black diplomat was subjected to by our border thugs, like the extended version of what AOC described on her day trip to one of the ICE camps.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...arassed-325676

Marginal in the national sense, perhaps, but it's obvious that the election will come down to the Rust Belt states again, and if Fearless Leader carries those, the 'extinction of free and fair elections' won't matter much.

How would you be able to tell? The only firm indicator would be a heavy polling shift before the event, which isn't evident yet. But in abstract, I would prefer Biden to emphasize Trump's failure to resolve unrest as well as his contributions toward it (which Biden has been doing to some extent), as well as outlining simple steps - in a campaign we can allow them to be simplistic - that he would take/encourage in office to resolve it. What do you think of Biden's Pittsburgh speech?

[Hooahguy]

I agree that Biden should have gone to Kenosha. Though consider the governor asked Trump not to come, I wonder if a similar request was made to the Biden campaign, just less public. Biden has also launched a $45 million ad buy with a focus on the swing states about how Trump is fanning the flames of unrest (though to be honest I'm not really sure I like the ad so much, to me it kinda starts off weirdly). Good to put some of that over $300 million the campaign got in donations in August alone, which apparently broke a record. As I've mentioned before, every dollar needs to be spent plastering the airwaves with ads. I was amused to hear that they even got some ads going in Animal Crossing. Of course, video game political ads are not unprecedented, as Obama did the same thing in 2008.

On a side note, the Trump folks posting a photo of Trump surveying damage in Kenosha with the caption about how this is what Joe Biden will do to America is...

[Montmorency]

I agree that Biden should have gone to Kenosha. Though consider the governor asked Trump not to come, I wonder if a similar request was made to the Biden campaign, just less public. Biden has also launched a $45 million ad buy with a focus on the swing states about how Trump is fanning the flames of unrest (though to be honest I'm not really sure I like the ad so much, to me it kinda starts off weirdly). Good to put some of that over $300 million the campaign got in donations in August alone, which apparently broke a record. As I've mentioned before, every dollar needs to be spent plastering the airwaves with ads. I was amused to hear that they even got some ads going in Animal Crossing. Of course, video game political ads are not unprecedented, as Obama did the same thing in 2008.

Now we're getting into the minutiae whose utility I can't help but be skeptical of. Presidential elections are decided more by the fundamentals than anything, and this matchup is almost a Platonic form. Unless the process takes precedence, which it has. Between fundamentals and process, there isn't much space left. (Look at Biden winning states in the primary he barely had a campaign or ads in.) The standard inside baseball campaign stuff is probably overrated in political analysis.

On a side note, the Trump folks posting a photo of Trump surveying damage in Kenosha with the caption about how this is what Joe Biden will do to America is...

The premise is that, if this is happening when Biden isn't president, imagine how it will be if he is (because white Democrat race traitors love nothing more than loosing black animals to prey on the god-fearing, hard-working Real Americans). To which the obvious retort, if Trump isn't make scary thing go away now, how is he supposed to do it in his second term?

(The subliminal answer is: unleash the full fash.)

[ReluctantSamurai]

What do you think of Biden's Pittsburgh speech?

It's a start, as Hooahguy stated. However, it's reactionary as opposed to being proactive. It's possible that Gov. Evers privately talked to the Biden campaign asking him not to come, but Biden should have anticipated Trump would, and pre-empted his visit and the resulting camapign-op, by being the first one there and speaking to local government and the protesters, IMHO. We all know Trump's visit is a BS campaign-op, but the visual looks like "Look, the President cares enough to show up in person. Where's Joe Biden?"

Presidential elections are decided more by the fundamentals than anything, and this matchup is almost a Platonic form. Unless the process takes precedence, which it has. Between fundamentals and process, there isn't much space left

Here's where I think Wizard's First Rule [which I alluded to earlier] applies:

"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true."

And Fearless Leader will continue to bang his drum of "Law & Order" and more and more stupid people will believe him because they see the scenes of burned-out businesses promoted by news media to garner ratings, or they are afraid that he might be right about those "Marxist, Left-Wing Radicals" disguised as Democrats. Look, I know many folks see through Trump's BS, but I'm talking about taking the offensive and use a variation of Reagan's 1980 catch phrase by asking Americans: Are you safer today than you were 4 years ago? 184,686 Americans can't even answer the question because they're dead. I'd venture that the over 16 million unemployed would probably say they aren't. Three months of this pandemic cost more people their jobs than two years of the Great Recession. Ask the over 12 million who have lost their job-related health insurance if they feel safer today than 4 years ago.

All I'm hoping to see is to attack Fearless Leader where he believes he's strong---Law & Order. Don't let the Law & Order battleground be simply daily pictures of riots and looting, which is the drum Trump will constantly beat. Tie his worse than abysmal pandemic response, the accompanying economic catastrophe, the fact that he is actively stoking racial tensions by calling on right-wing radicals to 'defend their cities', (and as I pointed out in an earlier post [https://www.vox.com/2020/6/16/212866...ng-the-police] it's actually Trump who is defunding the police) and start asking the American public---Do you feel safer today than four years ago?

[Hooahguy]

The premise is that, if this is happening when Biden isn't president, imagine how it will be if he is (because white Democrat race traitors love nothing more than loosing black animals to prey on the god-fearing, hard-working Real Americans). To which the obvious retort, if Trump isn't make scary thing go away now, how is he supposed to do it in his second term?

(The subliminal answer is: unleash the full fash.)

I got their meaning behind it, its just absurd to me. I just find it weird that he is arguing that he can fix all this, but for some reason isnt fixing it now. Or does he just not think his voters will care? Im guessing thats the case.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Or does he just not think his voters will care? Im guessing thats the case.

From an article two years ago:

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...licans-passive

Support for Trump is intensifying even as it shrinks. This makes sense. Trump has slashed taxes for the rich, significantly relaxed regulations for business and will soon have named two conservative supreme court justices. He is delivering for his base – which is overwhelmingly white and suburban or rural. And with every gratuitous attack on a black sports star or the media, and every xenophobic aside or outburst on the global stage, they love him more. It’s not that they don’t know how it looks to the outside world or his opponents; it’s that they don’t care.

Democrats have, so far, been the passive beneficiaries of the outrage that has ensued. The large marches in the capital, demonstrations at the border and gun-control protests all illustrate significant enthusiasm for combating the Trump agenda. But there is a disconnect between these electoral gains and this political energy. The Democratic leadership has decided to stand not so much against Trump’s agenda as in the way of it. A Washington Post poll last year showed a majority of registered voters thought the Democratic party stood for nothing other than being against Trump.

A year and a half after the most bigoted, misogynistic, jingoistic president in living memory won the election and polluted the political culture, Democratic leaders are still just letting him talk because they aren’t clear what they have to say for themselves.

For now, letting Trump talk every single day, virtually uninterrupted, appears to be the official Democratic party game plan. With three months to go until the midterms they have proved they can provide opposition; they have yet to indicate they are willing to provide an alternative.

Have a familiar ring? The Dems have two months to lay out a concrete platform, and then present it to the American public. Countering Fearless Leader's rhetoric is only half the battle

[Hooahguy]

Here is where I find issue with all of this: the Dems have laid out a concrete platform, its just not being covered it seems. How much news coverage was there of the DNC platform, as opposed to the RNC platform which they just went all-in for Trump. I've heard over and over that Biden stands for nothing except being not-Trump, despite having pages of pretty detailed policies on everything from education to foreign policy, not to mention a bunch of interviews and speeches about said policies. I didn't really pay attention to his campaign when it first launched so perhaps when he started he came off as being just merely being anti-Trump, but whatever happened its proving hard to shake off that narrative which the media decided to run with. And its not a Biden issue, the media definitely treats Dems differently as a whole. The article you posted from 2 years ago feels a bit disingenuous since while the national Dem stance was "oppose the GOP as much as possible" (don't forget that at the time the GOP had full control of congress so what more could they do?), the individual candidates had strong messages that would be tailored to their districts. For example Lucy McBath from my home state flipped a red district with a very strong anti-gun platform. Harley Rouda, who flipped Dana Rohrabacher's seat in California, ran on an anti-corruption message. And most Dem candidates ran on protecting and expanding healthcare. So while there might not have been an ironclad platform, there was an overarching one that still allowed for flexibility in some places that resulted in wins where victory was not assured (for example, Conor Lamb pre-redistricting).

I started my stint in the House in the early spring of 2019 and I distinctly recall there being heavy messaging about the House Dem's priorities, namely healthcare/drug prices, governmental ethics, voting rights, and immigration. Like every non-Speaker press conference had these large signs we had to print stating the various pillars of the platform and our social media was always drumming about some new bill being passed in the House or something. Even the first bill introduced, H.R.1, was meant to be a statement of values when it comes to voting rights and ethics in government (currently sitting on McConnell's desk to nobody's surprise). But because Trump drama hogs the spotlight, you don't really hear much about those bills in the media. Another example is the whole kente cloth thing back in June. There was such a hubbub about it and how the Dems weren't doing anything except being performative, seemingly ignoring the fact that at that same conference they introduced the Justice in Policing Act. Merits of the bill aside, the fact that people freaked out about the kente cloth while mostly ignoring the bill makes me think that the media isn't really interested in the bills or the messaging- just the drama.

[ReluctantSamurai]

but whatever happened its proving hard to shake off that narrative which the media decided to run with. And its not a Biden issue, the media definitely treats Dems differently as a whole

Agreed.

The article you posted from 2 years ago feels a bit disingenuous since while the national Dem stance was "oppose the GOP as much as possible"[...]the individual candidates had strong messages that would be tailored to their districts.

Point taken. I wasn't attempting to go down the rabbit hole of "remember what happened in 2016" as 2020 is definitely not. But when was the last time the Dems said or did something to get in Trump's head? The Lincoln Project certainly did, but dealing with them is likely a deal with the devil.

makes me think that the media isn't really interested in the bills or the messaging- just the drama.

As I said earlier, the media seems to have gone the way of many Americans...weary of COVID-19, and weary of the BS in Congress at not getting anything done. Burning buildings, shootings, right-wingers vs. left-wingers, all the crap that grabs ratings (not that it shouldn't get press, but press to the exclusion of a lot of other things). And right now it seems to me that Fearless Leader is dictating the pace, and the circumstances. That needs to change......

[Hooahguy]

Point taken. I wasn't attempting to go down the rabbit hole of "remember what happened in 2016" as 2020 is definitely not. But when was the last time the Dems said or did something to get in Trump's head? The Lincoln Project certainly did, but dealing with them is likely a deal with the devil.

I mean I think impeachment really got to him. I remember his unhinged rants rather well.

And one might argue that Hillary is still living rent-free in his head too.

As I said earlier, the media seems to have gone the way of many Americans...weary of COVID-19, and weary of the BS in Congress at not getting anything done. Burning buildings, shootings, right-wingers vs. left-wingers, all the crap that grabs ratings (not that it shouldn't get press, but press to the exclusion of a lot of other things). And right now it seems to me that Fearless Leader is dictating the pace, and the circumstances. That needs to change......

I think the media has learned absolutely nothing from the past four years. If they haven't learned by now they aren't going to magically change in the next two months.

Edit: on the topic of effective ads, I think this new Biden ad really does a good job.

Edit #2: interesting data out of the most recent Fox News poll (in a day that is already packed with new polls)- it seems like Trump's approval post-Kenosha on handling policing and criminal justice is down 5 points in Wisconsin. So perhaps racial unrest doesnt automatically mean its better for Trump.

[Montmorency]

Aphorism for the day: "It's easier to be the conservative in a liberal church than a liberal in a conservative church."

"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true."

And Fearless Leader will continue to bang his drum of "Law & Order" and more and more stupid people will believe him because they see the scenes of burned-out businesses promoted by news media to garner ratings, or they are afraid that he might be right about those "Marxist, Left-Wing Radicals" disguised as Democrats. Look, I know many folks see through Trump's BS, but I'm talking about taking the offensive and use a variation of Reagan's 1980 catch phrase by asking Americans: Are you safer today than you were 4 years ago? 184,686 Americans can't even answer the question because they're dead. I'd venture that the over 16 million unemployed would probably say they aren't. Three months of this pandemic cost more people their jobs than two years of the Great Recession. Ask the over 12 million who have lost their job-related health insurance if they feel safer today than 4 years ago.

All I'm hoping to see is to attack Fearless Leader where he believes he's strong---Law & Order. Don't let the Law & Order battleground be simply daily pictures of riots and looting, which is the drum Trump will constantly beat. Tie his worse than abysmal pandemic response, the accompanying economic catastrophe, the fact that he is actively stoking racial tensions by calling on right-wing radicals to 'defend their cities', (and as I pointed out in an earlier post [https://www.vox.com/2020/6/16/212866...ng-the-police] it's actually Trump who is defunding the police) and start asking the American public---Do you feel safer today than four years ago?

Voters, it's been shown time and again, don't base their behavior on concrete policy; they care about values and feelings. In the abstract it's helpful for Biden to convey the impression that he can be trusted to competently administer on X issue (besides the decency/empathy schtick).

On the bold count we're aligned insofar as I think it's costless for Biden to explicitly say "Our approach will reduce unrest now and in the future by building trust and healing wounds; Trump's only increases it. Trump isn't for law and order, he's pro-brutality and pro-riot and pro-greedy old men stealing everything they can in the bust out while he waves at the messes he made to distract you." Or insert whatever you please. I just don't think it has an additive electoral value. Trump's net support basically hasn't budged since the tax reform was signed into law. The set of persuadables has been absorbed by the set of the persuaded. This can be hard to swallow - and, no offense, harder for people of your generation - because it goes against everything mainstream political culture and theory and media presentation has inculcated into the popular consciousness throughout living memory; indeed, past elections really just were more fluid.

and start asking the American public---Do you feel safer today than four years ago?

Biden seems to be hammering just this point a lot.

https://twitter.com/joebiden/status/1299164296329523200
https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/stat...98329852280832 [VIDEO]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPhMz4dEytE
https://time.com/5885180/biden-speech-pittsburgh


See, here's the thing. I think you overestimate the persuadability of voters, any voters. Persuadable voters have long been persuaded by now, and the cohort that remains - maybe as little as 1% of people who vote - are habitual late deciders because they have no coherent ideology or grasp of issues; their vote, if at all, is decided by essentially random stimuli at the last minute. There's no systematic or reliable means of communicating to those people. So sure, we can watch the polling, but what really matters is if the underlying factors are changing. If the underlying factors are changing they'll drive changes in polling anyway (i.e. a supervenient relation). But this post basically captures my thinking on the issue so well that I have to reprint it in whole.

Smart money, dumb money, and dead money all say, nine weeks before Election Day, that the presidential race is pretty much a coin flip:

President Donald Trump continued to gain ground on Joe Biden over the weekend in betting odds on the U.S. presidential election, which now appears to be a toss-up.

Democratic nominee Biden dipped from a -130 favorite over Trump to -118 on Thursday following the Republican National Convention. But the election is now a pick’em at offshore sportsbook Pinnacle (-108/-108) and at William Hill sportsbook in the United Kingdom.

“It’s a coin flip,” William Hill U.S. sportsbook director Nick Bogdanovich said.

How is this possible? After all, the polls have for many months and with great consistency shown Biden with a big lead at both the national level and in terms of the situation in the swing states that will determine the actual outcome.

My friend JJ is a very successful gambler, and he has a theory:

My gambling site has Trump as a slight favorite, with Biden as an even money bet. You’re so sure of the polls? Get rich!

Or do you hate money?

*Nobody* doubts the polls. In any remotely kind of fair democratic election, Biden walks.

It’s not going to be that.

We’re not “on the path to fascism” – we’re there. The election is going to be a joke on order of a banana republic. It should be monitored by the UN, for as exactly little as that always achieves.

The polls literally mean nothing to me. This isn’t going to be like the election of 1980, or aught-four, or that other time we had something like democracy. We elected a fascist, and now our country is fascist.

Their side hasn’t even *begun* to pull out all the stops – it’s all going to happen in the last few weeks, when it’s too late to appeal to the referees (which, right now, is THEM!!!) Our side will win all kinds of court cases in 2021 that set future precedents, they’ll have won the presidency.

The people betting on Trump aren’t stupid – the polls are baked into the line. And he’s still a fucking favorite.

This, I think, is the best explanation for why the betting markets are predicting at a minimum a far closer contest than what the polls currently reflect. This election is going to be rigged by the ruling party, because the ruling party has zero commitment, as in none, to holding anything even vaguely resembling a fair election. Fascists don’t do fair elections, any more than communists do. They don’t believe in them. Indeed, democracy is affirmatively bad, because unless it’s a herrenvolk democracy the wrong people — people who this country doesn’t belong to — often win. And that’s wrong.

That’s why Obama was an illegitimate president. That’s why the birther stuff — the key element in Donald Trump’s rise to political prominence — was always the most sincere reflection of the actual beliefs of Republican voters. Birtherism was always more of a metaphor than a literal belief: it didn’t matter where Obama was actually born, because he and what he represents aren’t really American.

And why should people who aren’t really American rule America? The answer is they shouldn’t, and that cheating to stop them from winning elections isn’t even cheating: it’s actually protecting America from the ultimate form of cheating, which is how the Left is even now stealing America from Americans, via the unfair bias of the media, the education system, the woke corporations (the NFL is going to put social justice messages in the end zones!), and via the biggest and most systematic fraud of all, which is the constant importation of yet more non-white people to pollute our blood, while the queers keep doing God knows what to the soil.

When I say the election is going to be rigged, I’m referring to a spectrum, that runs from an actually free and fair election on one end, to a fake election on the other. In a fake election, the outcome is preordained, and the election process is pure kayfabe. We’re not there yet. What we have is a rigged election, in which the process is heavily weighted by illegitimate factors in favor of one party, but not in a fashion that literally guarantees that party victory.

Some of those factors, such as the Electoral College, are even legal.

But make no mistake: if we were having a free and fair election over the next nine weeks, Donald Trump would have as much chance of getting re-elected as I have of winning the gold medal in the next Olympic 100 meters. This is not hyperbole: Donald Trump has never been supported at any point during his presidency by a majority of American voters. He’s the only president in US history — or at least in the 70+ years since the advent of modern polling — that anything even remotely like that could be said about. And now the course of events, mostly notably a plague and the economic crisis it has caused, should make it completely impossible for him to win this election.

But from crippling the USPS to blocking election reform to functionally overturning the Voting Rights Act to welcoming election interference from foreign sources, the Republicans are not going to allow anything even vaguely resembling a fair election to take place. They are now cheating and will continue to cheat at every turn, because again, they don’t see it as cheating: they see it as saving their country from the invaders who are stealing America from Americans. It’s the castle doctrine as applied to the whole culture, basically.

That doesn’t mean it will work. Again, a rigged election is not a fake election. But make no mistake: the refs are being worked and bought every day. We’re going to have outscore the other team by three touchdowns just to win by a last-second field goal. And if we don’t, the next election will be fake.

See also:

Chance of a Biden Electoral college win if he wins the popular vote by X points:

0-1 points: just 6%!
1-2 points: 22%
2-3 points: 46%
3-4 points: 74%
4-5 points: 89%
5-6 points: 98%
6-7 points: 99%

[Montmorency]

I got their meaning behind it, its just absurd to me. I just find it weird that he is arguing that he can fix all this, but for some reason isnt fixing it now. Or does he just not think his voters will care? Im guessing thats the case.

From an article two years ago:

More on why the presidential race is static in terms of sentiment. What you have to understand is that when Trumpists say Trump is doing a good job, aside from any lies or delusions what is meant is that Trump is leading an uprising against threats to White Power (the more perverse of the alt-right have called it a Warsaw Ghetto uprising.)

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020...acy-study.html

One explanation for Republican indifference to such deeds is that Republicans aren’t aware of them: Fox News’s programming and Facebook’s algorithm have simply kept red America blissfully ignorant of the commander-in-chief’s most tyrannical moods. (If a president executes a political prisoner in the middle of Fifth Avenue and no right-wing pundit is inclined to report it, does his shot make a sound?)

But a new paper from Vanderbilt University political scientist Larry Bartels suggests an alternative hypothesis: Many Republican voters value “keeping America great” more than they value democracy — and, by “keeping America great,” such voters typically mean “keeping America’s power structure white.”

In a January 2020 survey fielded by YouGov, a slim majority of GOP voters agreed with the statement “The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” Nearly three-fourths agreed with “It is hard to trust the results of elections when so many people will vote for anyone who offers a handout.” More than 40 percent agreed that “a time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands.” More than 47 percent concurred with the premise that “strong leaders sometimes have to bend the rules in order to get things done.” And on all of these questions, most of those who did not agree were merely unsure.

The reality is, as I've sometimes pointed out over the years, that right-wing Americans have about as much regard for democracy as the most radical Salafist extremists have.

Bartels’s study therefore aimed to discern the nature of popular indifference to liberal democracy on the American right. Which is to say: What ideological or cultural forces lead Republican voters to subordinate democracy to their desired political outcomes?

The study entertains a range of possibilities. By examining the answers that YouGov’s respondents gave to other survey questions, Bartels explored the degree of correlation between six voter dispositions and anti-democratic sentiment: partisan affect (i.e., a voter’s level of avowed love for Republicans and hostility for Democrats), enthusiasm for President Trump, cynicism about actually existing democracy, ideological commitment to economic conservatism, ideological commitment to cultural conservatism, and white “ethnic antagonism.” That last category refers to a voter’s level of concern about the political and cultural power of nonwhites in the United States. For example, if respondents agreed that “things have changed so much that I often feel like a stranger in my own country,” that “discrimination against whites is as big a problem today as discrimination against blacks and other minorities,” and that speaking English is “essential for being a true American,” they would post a high score on the ethnic-antagonism scale.

Of course, many of these dispositions are heavily correlated. To gauge the independent influence of each factor, Bartels controlled for five of the dispositions (freezing them at the average value among Republican voters) and then looked at how closely a high score on the remaining one correlated with anti-democratic sentiment. Applying this method to all six variables, he found that ethnic antagonism is a better predictor of a Republican’s indifference to democratic niceties than anything else.

Notably, what Bartels calls “cultural conservatism” (essentially, attitudes on all “culture war” issues except those concerning race, such as “patriotism, traditional morality … and disdain for big cities, rich people, journalists, and college professors”) is actually negatively correlated with anti-democratic attitudes. In other words: A GOP voter who espouses average levels of ethnic antagonism, partisan affect, and support for Trump — but exceptionally high levels of cultural conservatism — is less likely to agree that defending America’s traditional way of life justifies the use of force than the average Republican is. This suggests that popular support for authoritarianism within the GOP is not animated primarily by concerns with conservative Christianity’s declining influence over public life but rather with that of the white race.

This result has been discovered in I-don't-know-how-many studies over the past few years. The definitive struggle with American Darkness is that over malignant Whiteness. Without Whiteness, no army of evangelical hucksters or grasping plutocrats can maintain dominion, and they know it. I don't say this in allusion to the old trope that racism is a trick used by the elites to deceive the common folk, because the "elites" feel the same way to their bones. (The failure, then, of populism is that its inherent dichotomies between Elites and The People have always been incomplete and self-soothing.)

Point taken. I wasn't attempting to go down the rabbit hole of "remember what happened in 2016" as 2020 is definitely not. But when was the last time the Dems said or did something to get in Trump's head? The Lincoln Project certainly did, but dealing with them is likely a deal with the devil.

Pelosi has gained a reputation for trolling Trump in their dealings since 2017, latest example being her dismissiveness of Trump's stature vis-a-vis debates. As to how distemperate that makes Trump or what it achieves, it's probably impossible to say.

He was demonstrably angered and shaken by all the inquiries into his finances and dealings with Russia, to the point that much of his rhetoric has been geared around them. Also, many of the crimes he's committed in office. In these - especially in 2019 - there may have been too much of a reliance on the maxim of 'allowing the enemy to make mistakes,' in the absence of clear alternatives within our power. It's more that we can hold a minimal measure of relief in Trump's bungling and incompetence - it's not actually good or helpful that he feels he has and does have impunity to do whatever he whims.

As I said earlier, the media seems to have gone the way of many Americans...weary of COVID-19, and weary of the BS in Congress at not getting anything done. Burning buildings, shootings, right-wingers vs. left-wingers, all the crap that grabs ratings (not that it shouldn't get press, but press to the exclusion of a lot of other things). And right now it seems to me that Fearless Leader is dictating the pace, and the circumstances. That needs to change......

It's a nice thing to have, I just don't think there's a way to configure it toward extracting material advantage. One of the things one comes to realize over time paying attention to politics is that, as a truism, media coverage of a candidate's platform, attitudes, actions, and the like is wholly determined by how media entities choose to portray them. A political actor has very little control over that. Trump doesn't get anywhere without the media giving him a leg up.

Regarding my stance wishing the Democrats would get militant and speak of the fascist threat in the tenor Republicans use for black women suggesting children eat vegetables, all I can say with confidence about its media representation to the public is that it would certainly take command of the discourse in the way you'd like. The quality of the effects themselves is more debatable.

weary of the BS in Congress at not getting anything done.

Speaking of media narratives, to the extent this isn't being reported as "Republicans refuse to negotiate" or "Republicans have made the affirmative decision not to legislate pandemic/economic relief" it is a disservice done by the media.

[Hooahguy]

The reality is, as I've sometimes pointed out over the years, that right-wing Americans have about as much regard for democracy as the most radical Salafist extremists have.

I think David Frum of all people put it best:

If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.

Sadly we are seeing this coming true now right before our eyes.

Regarding my stance wishing the Democrats would get militant and speak of the fascist threat in the tenor Republicans use for black women suggesting children eat vegetables, all I can say with confidence about its media representation to the public is that it would certainly take command of the discourse in the way you'd like. The quality of the effects themselves is more debatable.

Speaking of media narratives, to the extent this isn't being reported as "Republicans refuse to negotiate" or "Republicans have made the affirmative decision not to legislate pandemic/economic relief" it is a disservice done by the media.

The problem seems to me that when Dems do refer to the GOP as being fascist (or similar terms), people accuse them of being apoplectic. But then when the GOP does something out of the control of the Dems, the pundits start yelling at the Dems "to do something." Example A of this is when the eviction moratorium ran out recently, and my god were all the pundits screaming "DO SOMETHING" at the Dems, seemingly unaware that the Dems in the House passed a longer term eviction moratorium a couple months ago and that it was sitting on McConnell's desk. I mean I guess the House could hold more hearings about it but unfortunately that doesn't do much to solve the issue.

I don't know the root cause of the problem, but I will say that if I was in the media right now I'd be very embarrassed for the profession.

Or maybe they just don't know how the legislative process works?

Also quick bit about the betting market thing, is there any data to show that its accurate in any way, or is it just random people placing bets depending on how they feel that day?

In about 30 mins it will be exactly 2 months until election day. Trump trails Biden by an average of 7.4 points. In the battleground states he trails Biden by at least an average of 4.2 points (Florida), with most of the other battleground states Biden is leading by a number of points more. The last 3 incumbent presidents who trailed after the conventions were defeated, but this isn't a normal election so its anybody's game.

[Montmorency]

I think David Frum of all people put it best:

Sadly we are seeing this coming true now right before our eyes.


The problem seems to me that when Dems do refer to the GOP as being fascist (or similar terms), people accuse them of being apoplectic. But then when the GOP does something out of the control of the Dems, the pundits start yelling at the Dems "to do something." Example A of this is when the eviction moratorium ran out recently, and my god were all the pundits screaming "DO SOMETHING" at the Dems, seemingly unaware that the Dems in the House passed a longer term eviction moratorium a couple months ago and that it was sitting on McConnell's desk. I mean I guess the House could hold more hearings about it but unfortunately that doesn't do much to solve the issue.

I'm not aware of a Democratic elected who has called Republicans a fascist threat to the existence of the country. I'd be surprised if there's even a state Assemblyperson who's come close, and if one did they'd be lucky not to be expelled/forced to resign, to say nothing of being denounced by their caucus. There is a clear and massive disparity between parties.

The leadership needs to be top-down to start because only then can the discourse broaden through the ranks. Elite signalling. To illustrate what I have in mind:


Alternative Obama DNC 2020 Address